Heathen...please tell me your exercise story. I'm very interested! Judy, unfortunately, I agree with John. Too often health care professionals take a "know it all" attitude with their patients, and their patients lose trust. Your attitude about them rejecting your recommendations must come through in your consultations. I have a wonderful GP, who knows me well, because he takes time with me. If I'm waiting 2 hours in his office, I don't mind, because I know he's taking that time to fully explain and help his other patients. When I told him I did not like certain drugs, he suggested some herbal remedies. Unfortunately, the thing I DON'T like about him is that he tries to sell me the same stuff I see in the Dollar General for $2 a bottle at a much increased price. LOL But hey, at least he's open to the notion of herbs. I only use what I consider "safe" brands, which I can't name here, but they are brands which have done research and have studies and continue to do research. One brand even put a warning label on one drug when it was found it interacted with a prescription medication telling people not to take the two together. Maybe it's just a CYA warning, but it was very responsible, to my way of thinking. Why should people trust drug companies? It's a proven fact that the drug companies spend more money on advertising than they do on research, but they blame the high cost of prescription drugs on the cost of research and development. Guess it wouldn't sound right to say "Due to the fact that we spend billions of dollars trying to cram this stuff down hour throats, we must charge you outrageous prices for it." Then there was that thing about Canadian drugs not being safe, because Canada didn't have the FDA standards that we do. They might as well have said "We're sending inferior drugs to other countries, because we can get away with it." Then there are the MILLIONS of dollars they pour into political PACS every year to influence the votes on things such as our buying drugs over the border, or negotiating prices with Medicare. Then there are those drugs that they KNEW were unsafe, and the FDA KNEW were unsafe, that were released to the public anyway, and now, after they've made billions on them, suddenly they're found to be unsafe and taken off the market. Of course, there are herbs that are taken off the market too, like comfrey and ephedra. I'm still angry about ephedra. I don't think it ever should have been allowed into diet aids, or quick energy pills, and maybe regulation would have prevented that. I used ephedra effectively and safely for years for my asthma, and really miss it. I can't take the side effects of epinephrine. Anyway, I'm never going to convince you, and you're never going to convince me, but I'll tell you one thing...if this cough doesn't get better in the next couple of days, I'll be off to my GP to get something for it. I do research when I get ill, and I've been retaining water, my feet are swelling, and now I'm congested and have a terrible cough with no fever to speak of. Scares me. Might be congestive heart failure. Then again, it might just be a chest cold, but only my doctor can tell me for sure. Oh yeah, that's another reason we don't trust health professionals. If I walked into your office with my symptoms, no matter how many times I told you I had no fever, you'd write me a script for antibiotics and maybe diuretics and be done with me. My doctor, on the other hand, has called me once since my visit to see how I was doing, because congestive heart failure was a suspicion of his as well. How many of your patients do you follow up on?

No need to worry at all. Enjoy the foxglove, like millions of others do.

Any natives with a butterfly association are a natural for children. They get the added benefit of learning something about the life cycle of butterflies. Butterfly weed or Asclepias tuberosa is still blooming and on the top of my list. Really any of the milkweeds are good. Liatris or blazing star really draws in the butterflies. I gave a talk to a 4th grade class last year on schoolyard habitat and mentioned Paw Paw. The hands went up and there were never ending questions about it. Paw Paw is larval host to Zebra swallowtail and makes edible fruit. Right now Cardinal flower is in full bloom. Hummingbirds really fight over it. This is a great way to introduce native plants to children. Give careful thought to your plant list, it is great that you are getting your daughter interested in plants, I would urge you to steer her in the direction of natives. Sam

Hi Christine, If I were you I would contact Elizabeth Peters at Grassy Knoll Exotics. She sells over a hundred varieties and I assume she'll know the ins and outs of what can pollinate what, and if you like she can even sell you the plant(s)she recommends. She's incredibly nice and helpful and she sells great stuff. Even if you don't plan on buying I would assume she'd be happy to answer your questions. She might not get back to you immediately by email. elizabeth@gkexoticplants.com 360.241.6954 http://gkexoticplants.com/ Here's a list of some with edible fruits: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/nexus/passiflora_spp_nex.html I think P. caerulea is supposed to be hardy to zone 7--you should check. The fruit is edible; I think you'd find differences of opinion as to whether it's worth eating. Frequently you see it described as good for jam, if that's any indication. Of course there's no reason you can't grow more tender species/hybrids inside when it's cold, and outside when it's warmer. As far a P. incarnata goes, I've never grown the plant, however I posted an abstract from a paper in a couple recent threads (at the moment they are just a few down)that says that it's self-incompatible. I don't know personally if that's accurate, but nobody has posted to suggest otherwise. One way to find out if something will pollinate another is to see whether a hybrid exists between the two species. There are lists of hybrids--see Myles Irvine's site: http://www.passionflow.co.uk/downloads1.htm This would take a bit of work. The problem with checking hybrids is that you only have to get 1 viable seed out of one fruit of who knows how many attempts to make a hybrid. You want to get fruits full of seeds (+ the edible associated arils) all the time, and not all pollen will give you that. That's where someone like Elizabeth comes in handy. Perhaps someone who has grown P. incarnata can also reply to your post? I know that hybrids with P. caerulea and P.edulis exist, but I don't know how reliably you get good fruit using these as pollinators. I can give you a seedling of P.edulis, however I don't think it would bloom until at least next year. I can also take cuttings off P.edulis 'Frederick' and/or 'Nancy Garrison', but not until later in the year as they are covered with buds. I suspect that these would bloom for you the following year--a cutting I took in November or December already does have buds.